In mid-2008, when every headline was screaming market meltdown and the end of financial life as the world knew it, Hiromitsu Nakauchi spotted an old friend at a school reunion.
Dr Nakauchi, professor of stem cell therapy at the Tokyo University Institute of Medical Science, had not seen much of Genjiro Miwa since the two left Azabu High decades earlier. But he knew his old friend's career had something to do with investment. "Look at what is happening! You finance people have done so many terrible things," the regenerative medicine pioneer told him. "It's time you finally did something to make the world better."
Almost a decade later, the company that the two men agreed to set up just a few weeks after that conversation is claiming a breakthrough that could transform the lives of millions across the world who have no access to reliable supplies of blood platelets - an essential treatment for some cancer patients and accident victims. It could also rescue Japan from a health crisis as it runs out of younger blood donors.
